Can’t Stop The Klopp: Here’s What Jolly Jürgen Needs to Do to Fix Liverpool
When Jürgen Klopp turned up to work at Liverpool Football Club for the first time, there was probably a list of tasks taped to his office door. Or maybe more like a full dossier thumped on his desk. Liverpool is amongst the proudest clubs in world football but recently they’ve not exactly been trending upwards. Brendan Rodgers got them close - so close - to the Promised Land only for his team to fall sharply back into the itchy confines of Europa League qualification. Now Mr Klopp’s been called in to pick up the scraps and mould them into art.
Luckily he has a history of getting this done. This is a dude who won multiple Bundesliga titles and made a Champions League final with Borussia Dortmund, a club not all that different from where Liverpool is now when he took over (worse, actually). Klopp’s a fascinating guy. An incredibly gifted speaker and a shrewd tactician, he has a way of convincing players to buy into what he asks – which is something that Rodgers blatantly failed at. Players will play out of position for Klopp because he’ll make them feel like their sacrifice is for the greater good.
The fact that he’s joined Liverpool at all is a good indication of the guy. He’s a passionate manager who wears his heart on his sleeve. As loyal as he is romantic. (Funnily, he’d be Brendan Rodgers’ idea version of himself). And to a guy like Jürgen Klopp, this is a very romantic job. Liverpool, the team of the 80s fallen from the glory days of old, now stuck in that agonising tier below the genuine title challengers. They’re on par with Spurs and Everton, probably somewhere in between the two. And yet Tottenham would never be in the running for a manager who may or may not be Bayern Munich’s number one choice to replace Pep Guardiola when he leaves. It’s Liverpool’s passion and history that’s sold Klopp on this gig, don’t doubt it.
Of course, if it were an easy job then Harry Redknapp would’ve done it. Brendan Rodgers did some fine things with this team but they’ve gone backwards. Getting Jürgen Klopp is a massive boost, reinforcing Liverpool’s idealised concept of their place in world football. If things go as hoped then this is the first step in returning a storied club to where they once were. Maybe add a few new banners on the Kop.
Yet for that to happen, here are a few things that Jürgen’s gonna need to fix first:
An Imbalanced Squad
In the last two seasons, LFC has spent almost three times as much money (£127m to £45m) on attacking players than they have on defenders. In some ways that’s normal, creative types cost more because their perceived value is more. But this is a team that’s had a long term issue of not being able to keep goals out. When they finished second under Rodgers and Suarez, they scored an incredible 101 goals that league season… and they conceded 50. That’s 13 more than City who went on to win, almost twice as many as Chelsea who finished third conceding just 27 (though scoring only 71). Last season they shaved two goals off that total but at the cost of 49 at the other end (seriously – 52 scored, 48 conceded – sixth place).
Part of that was the loss of 30-odd Suarez goals. Part was Brendan Rodgers fiddling to find ways to protect his goal only to end up overcompensating. The problem was (and is) that they only had one defender they could rely on: Martin Skrtel. And in their midfield, you have players who are either strictly defensive (Allen, Lucas) or strictly attacking (pretty much everyone else). For a while they had Stevie G playing defensively with the licence to charge forward now and then and also spray those beautiful long passes around (which he did every chance he got) which tied things together fairly well. James Milner helps in this way now. But under Rodgers there usually was a distinct gap between attacking players and defensive players in the lineups and that doesn’t lend itself to fluid footy. Still, it’s the holes at the back that most need attention. Not that they’ve totally ignored that problem or anything. £45m isn’t chump change...
The Transfer Committee
Brace yourself because you’re about to read something controversial: The Liverpool Transfer Committee is not an issue.
It’s not. All clubs use one, they just stop short of giving it a pretentious title. You think other managers get free license to buy whoever they want? Of course not. The scouts all get a say, the accountants get a say, the chairman gets a say, the other coaches, some of the senior players. Liverpool’s problem falls somewhere more deep-set. The Committee appears to be buying the wrong players, too many of them aren’t living up to expectations (see next).
Yet having said that, the most recent haul looks much better. Guys like Christian Benteke and James Milner are immediately proving their worth, while the likes of Nathaniel Clyne and Roberto Firmino should establish themselves in this team soon enough. The problem is that the club is paying the price for poor transfer dealing over a number of preceding years and that’s left the squad far too full of middling talent without enough top quality players. Coming in as he is, Klopp won’t get the chance to add any new names until January and even then it’s highly unlikely that he’s gonna be handed blank cheques to spend. Not with the coffers emptied on so many others already. He’ll have to make the most of what he’s got, which leads us to this next thought…
Too Many Underperforming Players
Yeah. Guys like Dejan Lovren and Adam Lallana. Alberto Moreno at times. Simon Mignolet’s had his moments. Even more established players have suffered downturns in form under Rodgers.
But the thing is: this happens when a club’s not hitting expectations. It’s really a vicious circle because underperforming players get bad results and those bad results lead to further underperforming. It’s the relief/excitement of change that inspires the supposed immediate turnaround that comes with a change of manager. You know, how teams always seem to win their first game under a new boss? Statistically it’s a myth, but then maybe those stats are skewed by the depleted morale that they emerge from. Klopp faces Tottenham in his first game in charge, away at White Hart Lane.
At Southampton Dejan Lovren was one of the better defenders in the Premier League. His partnership with Jose Fonte was as good as any in the 2013-14 season, Lovren looking classy as he intercepted ball after ball, playing it out well from the back and doing his job nicely. Yet at Liverpool he’s been a mess. Insane errors leading to goals, horrific positioning, very little to inspire confidence. However a player doesn’t just turn rubbish after one summer.
To an extent, Lovren played beyond himself at Southampton. It helped that he had a dominant partner in central defence, as well as a defined back four (Clyne/Lovren/Fonte/Shaw) with a defensive minded midfield before them (Wanyama/Schneiderlin). They played compact and that meant less room to cover and more protection from teammates. At Liverpool he’s had to play in a couple different systems with rotating personnel and holding midfielders like Steven Gerrard, Lucas Leiva and Joe Allen. Guys who are good in possession but they aren’t the defensive shields that Schneiderlin, for example, is. And any time Lovren’s been asked to play with wing-backs, he’s looked exposed.
So much of a player’s form comes down to the mental side of things and Klopp has that stuff figured out. He’s a football whisperer. He’ll say some inspiring things and get players believing in themselves once more. But some of these players need more than that and it’ll be curious how that goes. One thing Klopp loves is hard working attacking midfielders. Guys like Milner, Lallana, Firmino and Coutinho should get every opportunity.
A Squad Without Personality
What is Liverpool? How do they play football? How will they beat you?
In the past the answer to all three questions was probably: Luis Suarez. Right now there is no answer. They’re confusing to watch, playing with no distinct style. This is already something that’s been discussed at LFC. Apparently the owners have requested that the German instils a “recognisable brand” of football within this team.
Guess what? It just so happens that he has one of those. At Dortmund it was known as ‘gegenpressing’ (translated: ‘Pressing Against’). The idea involved a certain kind of rapid high-press, frantically trying to win the ball back as soon as they lose it. He used a five man midfield, 4-2-3-1, and those three attacking midfielders are the ones that go after the ball carrier, rushing him as the midfielders set a base to keep the guy from escaping with an easy pass. We’re talking three or four guys enclosing the dude on the ball. When they get it back, they flood forward on attack. With Dortmund, this led to some absolutely gorgeous counter attacking goals. Klopp once called it ‘heavy metal football’.
What this means, though, is that the midfield all find themselves often cramped in small spaces so they need to be technically superb in order to pass their way out of that. The width then comes from hard working fullbacks busting a gut to get up and down the touchline. Fitness is gonna be a huge factor for all these players, so not having a pre-season with them (or a winter break as in Germany) will be a hurdle.
Defensively this is a tricky thing to implement with Liverpool, the threat is that if you don’t close the man quick enough, or if someone gets beat, you open up your back four (maybe only two or three of them with the marauding fullbacks) to attacks. Putting Dejan Lovren and co. in that kind of space is a recipe for disaster, even with a high line. Having said that, both Nathaniel Clyne and Lovren played their best footy in a pressing system with Southampton so the early foundations are there. Alberto Moreno has the pace to play that role too. The one defender most put out would be Skrtel, which is a shame since he’s been their best dude there for several years now.
Also, the single striker formation means only one of Daniel Sturridge or Christian Benteke, since neither has the work rate to play deeper. But then there’s no reason why he can’t find ways to adapt. He’ll probably have to. It’s his job after all.
And finally…
The Mournful Feeling of Malaise
You know the one that’s set in ever since Steven Gerrard slipped over that time against Chelsea? The one that you get when it dawns that you’re not gonna reach those lofty expectations for another season? It’s been a long time since Liverpool last won the league title, 25 years and counting. But since then they’ve finished runners-up four times, third place five times and they’ve never finished lower than eighth in that time. Plus they’ve won three FA Cups, four League Cups and a memorable Champions League (as well as another UCL final) since then. Even as they’ve fallen behind the collective might of Manchester and London, they’ve always had the relief that they weren’t that far off. Under Rafa Benitez they were a cup team to be feared across Europe. Just not recently.
Rodgers teased the resurgence but all it did in the end was put Luis Suarez in the shop window. If you look at that run as an outlier then Rodgers finished seventh and sixth his other two seasons and never made a cup final. Two semis last season were teases as they were achingly edged by Chelsea in one and inconceivably out-managed by Tim Sherwood and Aston Villa in the other.
It’s not that Rodgers didn’t do a good job overall, it’s that good wasn’t good enough. Not for a team with five European Cups in its history. There’s nothing more frustrating for a fan or player than stasis. They’d settled into a role outside of the top four with little chance of challenging higher. That saps the drive and competitiveness, the confidence and the accountability.
But Klopp has already gone a decent length to solve this merely by turning up and signing that piece of paper. That a manager of his reputation (and infectious enthusiasm) would coach them, well, we’ve already talked about what that means. If he can build a culture of all of those things then you have a team ready to punch above their weight. That’s what the teams of Ferguson and Mourinho have done in the past. The teams of Shankly and Paisley before them.
The tricky thing here is that this embattled ideal isn’t only infesting the players, it infests the club itself. The fans and the history. They play to a narrative. When they early won the Premier League two years back it was because of some historically great football from Luis Suarez, a heroic turn by Stevie G and a brilliant winning streak. That’s wonderful if you can get all that but it’s not reliable. The best teams are capable of winning methodically. Their last European Cup win was a still-incomprehensible three goal comeback, their last FA Cup win required an all-timer from Gerrard in injury time. They do it against the odds or they don’t do it at all. As amazing as it is when that pays off, that’s the mentality of a team that doesn’t rate themselves among the best. They want to win it in the perfect way where the best teams will take it in the worst way.
To be fair, most of that was probably a Gerrard thing. Stevie was the heart and soul of Liverpool for a decade and a half and that bleeds into the rest of the squad. Gerrard was always more of a game-breaker than a game-manager after all. It’s so tragically poetic that it was his slip that effectively cost them the title he so desperately wanted. Not to say he wasn’t a legend in his own right, but the history books are gonna read: Scholes & Lampard > Gerrard. (Sorry).
And it’s also fair to say that without Gerrard this team is like a blank canvas. Right now that’s made them bland and frustrating to watch, though it also means that the new manager is free to mould and shape them to his liking.
For all that’s wrong on the surface of this club, Brendan Rodgers can still make the argument that they weren’t far off. They have players who’d fit in on some of the best clubs in Europe (Suarez went to Barcelona, after all). They don’t have enough of them, maybe, but Klopp is a guy who’s gotten the best out of players before. Compare Shinji Kagawa with David Moyes and with Jurgen Klopp. He’s not a manager reliant on the transfer market and he’s one willing to embrace the things that make Liverpool Liverpool. Which is to say that maybe he’s a little too good of a fit. Someone who might settle comfortably into a club that really needs a bit of a shakeup. But that might be underselling Klopp’s vision.
A new reign is upon us. It’s all up to you now, Jürgen.